Physical performance training is highly effective when a student can observe an instructor or human subject matter expert model a desired behavioral pattern. Stimuli are most rich when the instructor is able to demonstrate the behavioral pattern such that the student can observe from many different angles. Physical tasks, such as manual labor tasks (e.g., firefighting), sports (e.g., baseball), delicate dexterity-based tasks (e.g., neurosurgery, obstetrics), self-defense techniques (e.g., martial arts), dance (e.g., ballet, folk dancing), manual manipulation of genetic material, and manual manipulation of atoms (using a scanning tunneling microscope), typically require one-on-one contact with the instructor. The instructor may assess the student's performance of the physical task and provide the feedback necessary for the student to master the physical task.
Assessment of physical behaviors for psychological research, performance appraisal, or physical training course evaluation is typically time consuming, laborious, and highly obtrusive. One threat to the validity of most experimentally-designed psychology studies is the inevitability of demand characteristics, a change in a subject's behavior brought about by the subject's awareness of the study. The characteristics of the study setting, in effect, demands a different sort of behavior than would have been elicited naturally. Additionally, collecting behavioral data is labor intensive, often requiring a person to tally and/or to interpret the behavior. Social science research, therefore, is often limited in scope to situations that are relatively convenient. For example, research assistants typically conduct behavioral analysis for no longer than eight hours at a time. An automated approach to physical behavior studies capable of running continuously for a number of days or weeks may be desirable to improve the scope of the study. Additionally, studies that do not involve the subject's proximal awareness, or at least avoid constant reminders that the subject's behavior is under examination may potentially eliminate the demand characteristics.
Modern workplaces may contain many assessment and training situations where either non-reactive measures are desired, physical labor cannot be avoided, behaviors may need to be highly refined, or where behavioral errors may be very costly. Organizations that rely heavily on physical abilities (e.g., professional sports, law enforcement, medical practices) may desire such an automated approach.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a device for examining an object to determine its behavioral pattern, employable in assessment and training situations.